


friendship bracelets

by mishnewbooty



Category: Video Blogging RPF, vlog squad
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Handcuffed Together, Porn with Feelings, Roomates, Smut, bound together to get along better trope, i accidentally came on you trope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 06:22:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20003737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mishnewbooty/pseuds/mishnewbooty
Summary: He pictures her in sunlight, her head tipped away from him and the words coming slowly. Carefully like she's saying as much as she can and it's not easy for her. He pictures the two of them side-by-side and the swing's silver chain bisecting her profile. Her phone in her hand taking pictures of the sky. His phone. Theirs.in which there’s the i accidentally came on you trope everybody loves





	friendship bracelets

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this before we got that image of natalie walking around his house wearing a crop top watering plants but it fits perfectly here.

“What?" He keeps his tone level. It's just a question. He's not snapping at her. He is very pointedly not snapping at her. Snapping is not going to help.

She glares anyway. She wastes half a second glaring, and that's it before she turns away without a word. She's moving again. Making her way outside to water their peach tree. Which means he's walking outside to water their peach tree, because, hello? Cuffed.

And apparently he's not walking fast enough. That's the subtle message underneath the glare. Underneath a thousand impatient tugs at his wrist.

He stifles a sigh. Almost stifles it, judging from the way her spine stiffens. She doesn't turn this time. She doesn't glare. She just keeps walking, though. She isn't even bothering to glare.

The glare was actually progress. Before the glare, she hadn't even looked at him in almost 2 hours. It's been longer still since she's said anything. She pretty much stopped talking a while back. Somewhere in between all the awkward grunting and shoving at the freezer and the two of them trying to find a comfortable position for both of them on to the couch, she'd trailed off in to monosyllables and then nothing.

He's trying to respect that. He's trying to shut up, and he's trying not to snap at her, and she’s trying not to snap at him because this is her coping mechanism. Silence and shuffling and the occasional glare. He gets it. Even if she seems to have no appreciation for the fact that his coping mechanism is sarcasm and silence.

Even if she seems to care not at all that the cuffs are way tighter on him than her, and it hurts every time she changes direction with no heads up at all. No warning but a brutal yank. But that's how she copes. He gets it. He's trying to stay out of her way. To read her body language and work with her.

He's really trying. But it's hour 8 of this saga, and it's not getting any easier.

8 hours ago Jason (fucking Jason) arrived in a chipper mood with a pair of heavy duty hand cuffs in his hand. A self proclaimed so called great idea of his to handcuff the two of them together for 24 hours to cure their “hostility” toward one another. He said he began to notice they’d been really getting at each other’s throats lately and they needed to find a way to get along. He also said he remembered when he did it with his ex wife and Trisha and those videos did great. “C’mon it’ll be a great vlog bit”

“Imagine the clickbait I HANDCUFFED MYSELF TO MY ASSISTANT FOR 24 HOURS think of the views!.”

That mixed with the fact he was low on vlog fuel lately and maybe this could help their strenuous relationship. It could make a great 20 second bit for Monday’s vlog. So he agreed and much to Natalie’s dismay she was roped into it with little to no say. Not without a fight of course, after master negotiating with the devil himself she scored a weekend off and unlimited party sized Doritos for a month from him.

But it’s coming up on hour 9 and none of it's getting any easier, but he’s trying. Not that she seems to appreciate it. No, she just keeps jerking him around. Literally, for once.

The thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth. He feels guilty for it immediately. Because it's not fair, right? She's jerking him around literally because this is how she copes and they have to do something.

And she's not jerking him around... not literally on purpose. Metaphorically. She's not deliberately jerking him around metaphorically. She's just not ready.

Not ready.

He pictures her in sunlight, her head tipped away from him and the words coming slowly. Carefully like she's saying as much as she can and it's not easy for her. He pictures the two of them side-by-side and the swing's silver chain bisecting her profile. Her phone in her hand taking pictures of the sky. His phone. Theirs.

She's not ready, but there's a silent yet between them. Ever since that day in Chicago. He believes that, even when it's not easy. And he can wait, right?

He can wait. Usually.

he’s walking back into the house and heading for the podcast room

"Shit!” She circles around to face him suddenly like she forgot something

"Wha-?"

She stops. He all but runs into her. He stops just barely short of her body. Just short of her back pressed to his front—her hips fitting against his all too well—and they've already been there once today. He stops just short and can't find any air.

"Sorry," he mutters and there's too much in the single word. Too much. "Sorry," he says again, but she's not listening.

She cocks her head toward the window. Her hair tumbles back off her shoulders. He breathes in the scent of her. He closes his eyes against it. Reminds himself that he can wait. He can wait.

It's just that waiting is easier from a distance. And there's no distance now. Literally. There's no distance at all. Even now when she's on the move again. When she jerks her chin back down and rejects whatever she was thinking about the window. Even when her arm is stretched out as far behind her as it will go and she's tugging at him, there's no distance at all. They're cuffed. Together. And she's right there. Constantly right there for another 16 hours.

And it's not easy. Waiting isn't easy at all when her skin brushes his every second. When he can feel the delicate jut of her wrist and the pulse just beneath. Slow and steady, then jumping when she thinks she hears something. It's not easy when he wants to lace his fingers through hers and bring that thrumming proof of life to his lips.

This isn't usually, and it stopped being easy a long time back.

She pauses, then lurches forward again. It catches him off guard and the bite of the cuffs into his wrist is particularly vicious, and he doesn't quite manage to stifle a grunt.

"David!” She turns on him. She's half in shadow and her eyes are blazing. She's furious. "Why can't you keep up?"

She pulls hard at the cuffs. Literally. Deliberately. Suddenly he's furious, too.

"Why can't you just stop?

"Stop what?"

She leans toward him, practically hissing in his face. He can feel the heat coming off her in waves and he's done.

"Stop being so...” He cuts off on a frustrated noise. He doesn't know. He doesn't even know. He jerks his hands back. Forgets about the cuffs as he tries to put some distance between them. She stumbles into him. Of course she does. They're cuffed and now there's no distance between her body and his. He takes her weight and stumbles back himself. He tries to right them—to put any distance at all between them—but they're falling.

He hits hard on his back and the wind gets knocked out of him. She's sprawled on top of him, their joined hands stretched over his head. She's sprawled on top of him and her hair is falling around their faces and it goes from not easy to actively bad in a heartbeat. So very, very bad.

“Oh, sorry." He plants his free fist as the breath rushes painfully back into him.

He tries to struggle to a sitting position, but her body is limp and heavy over his. She's not moving. She's not moving.

"Nat, are you..." He shifts his legs, trying to get purchase to flatten his feet. She lets out a strangled cry.

"David... don't." It's a grim rasp. Pained and hardly even a whisper. It scares him. It scares the hell out of him.

"Nat, what- ." He winds his free arm around her waist. He holds her still against him as he works his torso upright. "Natalie!”

The motion tears another noise from her. Something low and wild and he's panicking. She's hurt. She must be hurt. He twists his left wrist and laces their fingers together. He lifts her hand as gently as he can and wraps his arm behind her neck.

"Please." Her voice is ragged.

"Don't..."

"What is it?" He can't see her face. He lets go her fingers to sweep back her hair. "Don't what?"

He rocks them to the side. He keeps her body as still as he can, but he wants to get her into the light. He does. He manages to haul the two of them a foot nearer the window.

"Nat, talk to me."

He sinks his left hand into her hair and coaxes her head back. The light falls across her face. Her lips are parted and her breath comes in quick, shallow pants. Her eyes are huge, even beneath the heavy sweep of lashes.

She's not hurt.

"David don't move," she grits out finally. Her chin drops to her chest. She's trying to breathe, but a shiver runs all through her. All through her. She's straddling his hips. She's in his lap and he feels it. She's not hurt.

"Natalie."

His mouth drops to her hair. To the warm pink flush of her cheekbone and his voice sounds far away. Low and strained and like it belongs somewhere else. To someone else.

"Nat."

He groans against her neck as she shivers again. It runs from her body to his and back again, and he really means to ask. He means to make sure this is OK. This. Because there is a _this_. There is a serious, urgent this and he really means to ask, but it's too late by then. The fingers of her right hand are knotted in the collar of his t-shirt and his are creeping under the hem of her sweater. Claiming the flare of her hip and striking out for undiscovered territory. The curve of her ribs and the stepping stone path of her spine. Every inch of her he can find.

He means to ask, but she's rolling against him and her teeth catch the skin behind his ear and he thinks maybe it's OK with her. He thinks maybe it's very ok that he's not moving.

He spreads his palm wide and low over her back. His fingers splay beneath the waist of her jeans and the ridge of elastic draws a groan from him. He holds her and moves with her. Pours words into her ear. Nonsense and her own name. He coaxes her on and on until he's lost in the feel of her and the sounds winding around the two of them.

He bows his head against her shoulder and turns his mouth to her neck. He presses his lips hard against her skin. Presses them hard against bone and muscle and tendon and he doesn't say the words. _I love you_.

Her head drops drown. Her back concaves into him like she’s trying to burrow into his chest. Her mouth falls open and she shakes and shakes against him. He watches, fascinated, as the sensation falls over her. As it seeps into her and she shivers one last time. Her eyes open and close, unseeing at first, and he's suddenly afraid. She just... and he...

He's waiting. He was supposed to be waiting, because she's not ready, and this next moment could go very, very badly. Her eyes open and close. They open again and she doesn’t seek him out. She’s avoiding his eyes. She tugs at the cuffs. Pulls his left arm all the way around her shoulders and tugs him forward. She slides her fingers into his hair and stares at his lips.

He should say something. He really should say something but his insides are still twisting. They're still climbing high and falling away, and _Can I make you come again?_ is all he can think of. It's probably the wrong thing. Even if he says please. Especially if he says please, it's probably the wrong thing.

But she drops her forehead against his and her eyes close again and he's off the hook.

Kind off the hook.

She settles against him. Her breathing slows and her thighs aren’t shaking anymore. She relaxes on a sigh and it's his new favorite sound in the history of the world right up until the moment her hips shift. He's not expecting it. She's in his lap on the floor and he's not expecting it at all.

He squeaks. It's the kindest word for it. For the breathless strangled thing that he meant to be her name. That he meant to be a plea of his own. Don't move.

"David," her eyes fly wide and her cheeks go pink. "You...I... “

They stare at each other. For two long, torturous breaths, they stare and then she lets out a laugh. Weak and shaky and desperate, but now they're both laughing. She curls her right hand behind his neck and mumbles an apology against his shoulder.

"No," he laughs. "I'm... no. This isn't... there's nothing..." He works his right hand between them and tips her chin up to look at her. "There's nothing- don't say sorry."

The pink of her cheeks deepens. "But you're..."

She looks down between their bodies and it's... dirty. It's positively filthy that they're laughing all over again. She covers her mouth to smother a smile.

"We should...”

"Yeah.”

She laughs again. A soft sound that mingles with his own. He waits. Lives dangerously a moment longer.

"You first," he says quietly in her ear. She pulls back. It's sudden and he's worried. For half a second, he's worried. She's staring at him. Searching his face intently and he's afraid of all the things she might see. She kisses him then. A hard, clumsy thing that knocks their foreheads together, but she kisses him and he stills.

It's the first time. Kind of the first time. He chases stray thoughts about taking her out. About late night car rides and dim lighting and the appalling fact that this is really the first time.

He has her in his lap. He's had her shaking against him and felt the hum of her body and hasn't even kissed her. He feels the blood rush to his face. He feels words and explanations climbing into his mouth, but she kisses him again and they get it right this time. Exactly right, and he thinks it's OK. That this is backwards and strange and not easy, but it's OK.

She kisses him one more time. A sweet promise and he loves the shy pink of her cheeks. He loves her. She kisses him on the cheek and says “Maybe Jason was onto something.” And then she's standing. She's unwinding their limbs and standing tall. Tugging at the cuffs, and he moves with her. They stand on wobbly legs and she smiles.

“Remind me to thank Jason for this one.”

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos help me know if i'm doing a shitty job or not don't feel shy!


End file.
